My Mind

This is my mind

Monday, August 18, 2014

Happy Birthday, Richard

So Richard
Beck is celebrating a birthday on August 21.
I don’t know why but for some reason that is important to me this
year. I know that he and I share
radically differing views in the political world but that does not erase those
days long ago when we were friends wearing out the knees of our dungarees
playing marbles in the dirt.

Riverland
Terrace School, which was the beginning of our education about the wider world,
was situated in the middle of our first world which, strangely enough was
called Riverland Terrace. It was a
relatively new community chock full of children who would later be called Baby
Boomers. We had no idea we were the luckiest kids in the world.

I cannot sit
here and tell anyone the first day we met because, simply put, I am old and my
memory is shot through with holes. There
are those memories that seem crystal clear though I may have colored them to my
own palette. The early years in our
classrooms swirl around in a miasma of bits and pieces that do not coalesce.

The building
which stood like a colossal skyscraper to six and seven year olds was ringed by
a section of brick that stood out half an inch from the wall and a couple of feet
above the ground. He took on the
challenge of walking that half inch on splayed feet. Below, the ground promised pain and sorrow
with just one slip. Imagination conjured terrifying creatures awaiting a careless
move along the precipitous face of brick and mortar. Richard had taken the first step from the protruding
arm of the porch that lead into the side entrance. I watched his courageous move shivering at his
fearlessness.

“Come on,
Rickey! It’s easy. You can do it!” he said his right cheek
hugging the wall. I saw half his smile
and his sparkling left eye only because his arm was blocking a full view. His hand reached above to find finger holds
between the bricks. I shook my head as
he began to inch away from me. He turned
to face the direction he was moving. His right foot slid along the half inch of
brick while his right hand felt along the gripping edge until he was leaning
away from me still shaking my head. He
continued to the corner of the building encouraging me to follow him with each
inch he gained on his journey. He came
to the sharp edge of the bricks that formed the corner and reached around with
his hand struggling for a hold. The
triumph lit his face and he eased his right foot around to the other facing of
the red bricked building. He waited for
a minute to stabilize his position.

“Rickey!
Come on! It’s easy!” he yelled one last time and he was gone from my sight. I listened but heard no scream of a plummeting
body to certain death, or at least to a smarting hiney. No, just the call of a friend borne on the
wind cajoling me to join him in acres of
fun.

Alone, I
stood, on the porch shivering in the wind that whistled around the corner of
the dark building looming over me. My
friend, Richard, was far beyond me now.
Fear had turned me to stone. Once
more the call for me to join him wafted around the corner faintly. I had to do it. I took two steps to the half inch
walkway. I slid my foot out beyond the
porch. Placing my body up tight against
the wall I reached for a hand hold above me.
Feeling my fingers slide into the groove I held on with all my might and
placed my left foot sidewise on the protruding brick. Quickly I found a second handhold with my
left hand. I had done it. I was alone against the wall two feet above
ground.

“Now what?”
I thought as I held tightly. A voice
inside said slide your feet and hands in the direction you want to go. I closed my eyes and obeyed. At the corner I opened my eyes and smiled
having come this far. I kept my hand in
the groove and slid it ever so carefully around the corner along with my
foot. I was at the turning point. Holding fast I peeked around the corner to
see Richard almost at the green door midway along the side of the
building. His movements, encouraged by
experience, were smooth and fluid as he propelled himself along at dazzling
speed. He jumped to the step and turned
to see if I had followed. His grin was
wide with triumph. Jumping from the step
he ran to my position and coached me along until my foot could stand solidly on
the step in front of the green door. I
might have fallen and died had he not stuck near me with words of cheer at my
progress.

Our time at
RTS was filled with such moments, far too many to enumerate. The middle years were filled with exploring
our world of Riverland Terrace on our trusty bikes, his, a Schwinn and, mine, a
Columbia. They were our equivalent of a
Ford and a Chevy, mine being the Ford of course. Our rides took us further and further into
the wide world of the Terrace. We ventured
to the edge of Suicide Cliff at Riverland Drive’s end on the Wappoo Cut. I was elated to have ridden my bike so far
and seen the famous site about which I had learned from my mother. The drop was steep for a child my size.

“Why’d your
mother call it suicide cliff?” asked Richard.

“Dang if I
know,” I answered.

With that we
laid our bikes down and began to climb down the rocks to the water’s edge. Jagged rocks assaulted our shoes as we
slipped on the slime. Crumbled asphalt
lay along the slope of the cliff. We
looked up to see the dead end sign leaning ever so slightly toward the
water. The oaks along the top of the
cliff provided shadow on that hot summer day as we watched the fiddlers scuttle
away from us huge pinchers held high to ward off danger as they searched for
the opening of their mud holes. We
found a cord tied to a sprouting seedling which led out into the water. Richard tugged on it.

“There’s
something on the end of it,” he said and began to pull at it. He pulled in a barrel shaped wire
enclosure. He picked it up. Inside we could see a cone shape leading into
the middle on both ends. Within were
flopping bodies of minnows.

“It’s a minnow
trap!” Richard said.

“What’s
that?” I asked.

“They are used
for bait by fishermen. This is put in
the river overnight. The minnows enter
through that cone on either side. It’s
easy to go in but going out is not so easy.
The minnows are trapped.”

“Why would
they go in there?” It didn’t make sense to me.

“There is
usually something inside that they like to eat.
That’s what draws them in.”

“Oh,” I
always answered when he filled me in on some new piece of knowledge I had never
heard.

We scrambled
up the side of the cliff and ran back to our bicycles. We raced along the road ahead of us, the wind
whistling past, when Richard spoke up in quick gasps.

“I have an
idea!” he shouted into the sky above.

“What?” I shouted back.

“Meet me at
my house!”

His words
faded as he shot forward and beyond me.
I pumped my legs as fast as I could to catch up. I breathed hard as he slipped around the
curve in the road ahead. When I got to that curve, he was nowhere in sight.

Huffing and
puffing, I angled into the steep climb that was the start of his driveway.

“You could
have waited,” I gasped.

“I wanted to
get here and have this ready by the time you got here.” he was smiling and
flipping the cards in a deck he held in front of me. “Lemme show you what I want us to do.”

I was
astraddle my bike when he bent one of the cards. He attached it with a clothes
pen to the fork on my front wheel extending the other end into the spokes. He did the same with the back wheel. He up righted his bike, dropped the kickstand
and added cards to his wheels too.

“OK. Come on.
You’re going to love this.” He jumped on his bike and buzzed down the
drive leaning to the right as he hit the steep incline to the road. There came a roar from his bike that almost
sounded like a motorcycle. I moved
forward giving my bike momentum then hit the pedal hard. With a roar I followed Richard’s path
shooting down the street in a celebration of noise. We toured the Terrace again with the sound of
stiff-back cards clattering against spokes.
The smiles on our faces could have lighted the day had the sun gone
behind a dark cloud.

Those bikes
wore out in time and we were given new ones as we grew. Richard used his to work. He took on the job of paperboy. The evening paper, called the Evening Post,
was delivered to a store in the Terrace where he would receive them. On occasion I would accompany him.

The stacks
lay on the stone embedded asphalt beside the steps of what we called the Greek’s. Inside were groceries and cold drinks. I’d go in and get drinks and peanuts while
Richard cut the cord holding the stack of papers together. He would have rolled half the lot by the time
I came out with the bottles and bags.
The rolled ones would be stuffed into the canvas bag held on the wooden
cross affixed to his handlebars.

“Thanks,” he
said taking the Pepsi bottle. “Wow! That’s big!”

“Yeah, I know
and it’s still a dime,” I said tilting the pint bottle of Pepsi. The bubbly bites trickled into my mouth. “It’s
brand new, sixteen ounces of Pepsi.” I began to pour the peanuts into the neck
of the bottle, another thing Richard taught me.

“I don’t
know if I can hold that much in one sitting,” he said.

“Yeah, but
it’s a dime like the smaller ones. It’s
a deal.” I tilted the bottle again
receiving peanuts in a stream of Pepsi. I
chomped down on them.

Richard put
his on the step and commenced to rolling papers again. I joined in.
We finished up stuffing the last one into the canvas bag. I took the bottles back inside for the
deposit and tossed the empty peanut bags into the trash.

We hopped on
our bikes and made his paper run up Woodland Shores and Stono Shores. I’d head on home as he tossed his last
paper. We were both heading for supper
and the bathroom. A pint of Pepsi was a
bladder buster after a half hour or so.

When we
picked up our licenses to drive it was a whole new world. Richard began working at the Amoco Filling
Station at five points in Riverland Terrace.
I started my job at Charleston Rubber Company in the Stark Industrial
area after I was able to drive. One of
those hot summer afternoons as I drove into the station and the bell jangled
for service I cut the engine and got out to meet Richard as he approached the
car wiping his hands on an old towel which he stuffed in his back pocket when
he got to the pump.

“Lemme do
it,” I said reaching for the hose. He
rang it up so it could pump.

“How’s your day?” he asked. I slid the nozzle in the tank opening.

“Not
bad. Yours?”

“Fine until
the cops went flying past earlier today.”

“Something
bad happen?” I asked.

“Four of our
friends were in an accident.”

“Are they
alright?”

“No, they
all died. The car slammed into that oak
just beyond the sharp curve on Johns Island.
They were going to the Tomato Shed to start work.”

I think that
was our first brush with death involving someone we knew. It weighed on us for a while but with time we
let it go.

The time was
taken up with our interests. Richard
loved music and began playing the guitar.
He became half way decent on it.
He tried to teach me but it was not something I could grasp, neither
physically not mentally. My fingers were
too short to reach around a fret without cramping up but that was nothing to my
mind which took no understanding whatsoever to the notes on a page of sheet music. They never ever registered in my head as
musical sounds. I could whistle a tune
but could never attach that symbol to the sound, no matter how hard Richard
tried to explain it to me.

“Try this,”
he would say. His fingers would plunk
out a tune.

“Like this?” My fingers would bumble across the strings.

“Not quite. Tighten down on this string on this fret,” he’d
answer as his ears hurt from my scratchy noise.

The note I
tried to make would come out fuzzy. It never had that sharp melodic sound he
conjured with those magic fingers.

It came
natural to him and he was playing tunes and singing along like a real folk
singer. As he sang I would struggle with
my finger pressure on the frets without success. He was able to show me how to play a few
notes of Honky Tonk.

“I did it!”
I yelled proud as I could be after picking off five or six of the required
notes.

He smiled
while I tried to repeat it. His smile
evaporated as I tripped up the notes totally out of sequence producing a
discordant sound. I have never been able
to play it since not for his lack of trying to help me. We both figured after a while that I should
stick to whistling.

We enjoyed
the summers though we didn’t get together as often since we both were working
our summer jobs but on the occasional Friday night and Saturday night we would
head to the pier at Folly Beach to hear one of the bands and sip a few suds.

“The Hot
Nuts are at the pier,” I said one of those nights as I slammed the car door.

“Lemme get a
clean shirt and I’ll be right with you!”

I sat on the
hood of the car smoking my Camel. That
was something I never learned from him nor he from me. Cigarettes never tempted him, though I do
remember his experimenting with a pipe and some aromatic tobacco.

The screen
slammed behind him. He was buttoning the
last button when he reached for the car door. I slipped behind the wheel,
slammed the door and cranked the car. We were on our way to the pier.

The place
was alive with patrons and expectancy. The band had not made its appearance when we
arrived. We paid our admission and walked in.
The juke box was playing but the noise of the crowd was drowning it out.

“How about a
beer?” I shouted next to his ear. He
smiled and nodded. We got behind the sea
of humanity waving money at the bar tender.
Our turn finally arrived and we got our cups. The band still wasn’t on stage so we made the
trip to the bar several more times. My
brain was swimming in alcohol when the roar of the crowd announced the band.

Faintly
within that roar we heard their chant.

“NUTS! HOT
NUTS! YOU GET ‘EM FROM THE PEANUT MAN!”

And the
night began. The dance floor filled up
to become a roiling, writhing mass of bodies syncing to the sound from the loud
speakers.

In my
alcoholic fog I began to search the crowd for a familiar face or, if not a
familiar one, a pretty one.

“Let’s walk
around. See if we can find a dance
partner.”

“Sounds like
a plan,” he replied.

We started
shambling around people moving to the music.
Some were sitting at tables screaming over the heavy beat. They were leaning in close to one another to
be heard. One fellow was monopolizing two
girls who appeared bored with him as they glanced around in search of something
better. One of them smiled at Richard.

Richard
always willing to sing began a Bo Diddley ditty,

“He looks
like a farmer.”

To which I
added,

“But he
thinks he’s a lover!”

We looked at
each other and laughed at our drunken witticism as we continued our stroll
around the outer fringe of the dance floor.
We ended up at the bar once more.
Our hands full of beer cup we ambled over to the railing at the farthest
edge of the pier and looked down at the ocean waves breaking on the support
posts beneath us. We turned to look back
over the crowd our elbows resting on the rail.
I was watching the band and taking a drink from my cup when I was tapped
on the shoulder.

“What did
you say to me?”

“What?” I
asked over the band.

“I said what
did you say to me back there?”

Not knowing
who he was or what he was talking about I repeated my question. Richard looked as puzzled as I.

“What?”

“Over there,”
he said pointing, “you said I looked like a farmer.”

“What?” I
repeated.

“Yeah,” said
a guy behind him. “You said he looked
like a farmer.”

“No I didn’t. Richard said that.” My thumb pointed at Richard who looked upset
I had mentioned him.

“Then I
said, ‘but he thinks he’s a lover’.”

This didn’t
make things any better. Here we were our
backs to the rail and four guys spreading out around us.

“Whoa,
fellas,” I said. “We meant no harm by
what we said. It was all in fun. We were just singing that Bo Diddley
song. You know, You Can’t Judge a Book
by the Cover?”

“Well, I
didn’t like it, you talking like that about me in front of my girl. Me and my boys want you to step outside so we
can settle it now.”

“Whoa,
guys. We don’t want to fight. We’re here to have fun and what we said was
in fun. We didn’t mean anything by it. I’m sorry if you took offense. Please, accept my apology and let’s enjoy the
band.”

The guy
looked at his friends. They shrugged
their shoulders. He turned back to me
without changing his expression.

“I really
apologize. I didn’t mean a thing by it.” I looked at him while my mind churned over
whether it was high tide and whether a jump from the pier would be too high if
it weren’t.

“Well, OK,
but you stay away from me and my girl. Got
it?”

“Yeah,
sure. I’m sorry.” I said it once more for emphasis.

They gave us
a threatening look then left to haunt their side of the pier. We watched them as they did.

“What the
hell is wrong with you?!”

It was
Richard’s brother yelling at me.

“What?”

“You chicken
shit! You apologized to that low life?” He came at me spitting out the words.

“Why would I
want to fight him?” I yelled back over
the band.

“Because he
threatened you!” he blasted back.

“Only
because we made fun of him. It was our
fault. So I apologized. It was his due.” My words tumbled out.

He stared at
me. With the words ‘chicken shit’ repeated he turned and left.

“What the
hell?” I turned to Richard.

I’m not sure
how Richard felt about it since it was his brother. I’m the one who apologized so I believe
Richard was off the hook. I never asked.

Our days of
spending time together were coming to an end as our senior year in high school approached
June. We shared the same Senior English
teacher which we have always felt was our best class ever. We also helped write the senior class prophecy.

“We’re
meeting at Mrs. Smithwick’s to finish up the senior prophecy,” I told him as I
paid for gas.

“I thought
it was finished,” he said.

“Not
quite. Just a few more and we can wind
it up. So, see you tonight?”

“I’ll be
there.”

Mrs.
Smithwick was our senior English teacher.
She took a real interest in her students and was kind enough to allow us
to finish the prophecy there.

“Some of
these are fairly raunchy,” she said looking at me.

Jack Lee was
there holding the notebook and pen waiting to write down the golden words we
had to offer.

“Why are you
looking at me?” I asked grinning.

“I graded
that essay three times. I know what goes
on in your mind.” She looked firm in her
accusation.

“How many
more are left?” Richard said trying to get the ball rolling.

“I have the
list and we have three here not done.
Some of those that are done could be altered,” said Jack. He spoke their names. Two we knocked out in minutes.

“The last name
is Richard Leander Beck.”

“How about
this? Richard Beck was last seen in his
red Corvette convertible pulling his mobile church behind him as he preached
his way across the country.”

“I’m not too
keen on that one,” said Richard.

“Tough!”
Jack and I said together. “We’re sick of
this and that’s how we end it.”

Our teacher
warned us once more about some of the individual prophesies being a bit off
color.

“Aah, they
aren’t that bad. We’ll just read them at
the last meeting and that will be it.”
We packed up and left.

About ten
minutes before the meeting to congratulate the senior class on its graduation,
Jack was called into the principal’s office.
When he came out the notebook wasn’t with him.

“Hey, you
better go back and get the class prophecy notes.” I yelled at him.

“He took ‘em,”
Jack said.

“What?” said
Richard.

“He took ‘em,”
repeated Jack.

“He can’t do
that. We worked on those a long time,” I
said.

“What do you
mean, he took ‘em?’ Richard was still
baffled.

“He said
they were not fit to be read in front of the school in the auditorium.” Jack’s
words came out with venom which was strange for him.

“How so?” I
asked.

“He said
they were off color. Just like Mrs.
Smithwick told us and he was not going to allow them to be read.”

“That does
it for me. I’m leaving.” I turned and
marched to my car.

We shared so
many more things over those twelve formative years. Richard’s influence on me was marked. I can never hear Bo Diddley without our visit
to the pier cropping up into my mind. I
can never hear Honky Tonk without struggling to stretch my fingers around an
imaginary fret. I can’t hear “Honest I
Do” by Jimmy Reed without thinking of listening to it for the first time at
Richard’s. I always laugh when Redd Foxx
tells the joke about the Faukowi indian tribe and one of the tribe who became
lost as he turned to his traveling companion asking, “Where the Faukowi?” I can never hear ‘Work With Me Annie’ without
thinking of snickering at Richard’s upon first hearing it.

All these
thoughts came to me after hearing this song on Sunday evening. That song was ‘Scotch and Soda.’ I first heard it long ago as Richard strummed
his guitar and let the words flow. It
always floods my mind with the best memories anyone could want.

3 comments:

Ricky, What a wonderful piece of writing. For those moments, I was transported back in time to that amazing innocence and excitement we shared as friends. Somehow I think we knew that we were lucky..not wealthy... not particularly popular...but with a love of the moment that i would give anything to recapture in my time. I am always saying that all of us were so lucky to have lived out our young lives in the time that we did. It really was an age of innocence , peace, open spaces, freedom from fear and close friendships. We we brothers..maybe better than brothers since our biggest job was discover the adventure that the world had to offer and to share it with each other as we laughed our asses off. Thank you my friend for all the times we shared and your ability to remember and record them.

Loved, Loved, Loved the snippets from your memory! My grandparents lived on Stono Shores/Woodland Shores Road. I used to spend summers there at the same time you were delivering the Evening Post in that area. It is more than likely that I saw either one or both of you flying by the house. My grandparents had one of those green "Charleston Evening Post" boxes attached to their mailbox post. They added it after it became forbidden to use the regular mailbox for newspapers. To think that we crossed paths way back then is too cool! It's great the two of you are still around to share your memories. I really enjoyed reading about them.

Thank you, Nancy. I'm glad you enjoyed them. Richard threw most of them, at least that is what I remember. It is neat that we, like two ships in the night, passed one another. You should have yelled at us...

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About Me

My world changed in March of 2011. I became a layabout with no desire to work at my profession of choice made when I was too young to know what I was doing. Now I day dream about drawing, painting and telling lies. With time this blog will take on some kind of character I'm hoping or I may be hoping that I will gain some character by boring you and me with these words on screen.
This blog was begun as a flood of memories for my children and grandchildren to be read when they have decided they would love to know about my childhood. One day I am sure that will be true.